Rob & Stu's 69 Sport Satellite

[RobTwin]

Rcok On? Can you say that here?

Not finished yet; gearbox needs attention, engine could do with a freshen up, had a new shifter for a coupla years that needs fitting, not to mention the dog dishes that we've had for prob 10 years without any steels to go on, and still got to fix that vibration at 60-70 we've had since the engine mount tore...
Talk about unfinished project.

Wont be thinkin about any of that tho till t'other ones back together

[RobTwin]

Not much else to report since all that bodywork was done, except, oh yeah, some of it had to be done all over again after a sticking throttle incident!
That was around '97 and we were starting to get micro-blisters so a full respray was quite timely. Only problem is it wasnt as good a paint job and they didnt remove all the trim, so it doesnt look anywhere as good now as it did when it was done the 1st time.

Main work done recently is that Stu (he looks after the car so gets to do most of the work, lucky so & so ) went thru the cooling system and has just about got it so it doesnt overheat anymore. Prob was mainly the small block rad and small aperture in the panel it mounts onto. Cos of that smaller hole for the air to pass thru, there was little point getting a longer big block rad so got ours changed to 4 core instead of 2.
Also ditched the flex fan that we'd had since the 440 was built in favour of a stock type 5 blade fan. New waterpump & housing have also helped.

Just to finish off the tale, I'll put some later pics up from last years Nats and Dave Mc's pic from last year's Brooklands. Thanks again Dave!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Sandy

The guy with his back to us in that pic, with the no-expense-spared team t-shirt, was the CH owner, Paul Mander.
T'was a lovely car, a/c, electric seats, etc when he got it. But gradually got dtripped of its creature comforts in favour of go faster goodies.

Paul eventually moved on to a Duster to replace the Chrysler (but never got finished - current project should see daylight early next year), and the poor thing got sent to the scrapheap.

Another pic of the CH, plenty more to follow when I start posting from old events...

Very nice, Rob. Now, back to the other car :-)

Any more photos ?

The closest I ever came to buying a Mopar was when I nearly bought a CH by CH down near Heathrow in 1985 ... apart from the slant six 1970 Challenger I should have bought from John Mimmack in 1980. Bit much on a student grant though.

[Anonymous]

Great story well told twins.

I really enjoyed that. I think you have done a great job with that car.

Look forward to seeing it for real some time.

Can we have some piccies of Maxie??

[RobTwin]

Aw shucks Clivey, thanks

I'm lookin forward to seeing some info on your rebuild. You not got any pics of it at JPC yet?
Are you expecting it to be done for this spring/summer?

I thought we had enough pics of Maxie doin the rounds!
I was goin to post some when I've got some new ones of it at Paul Knight's. Hopefully some time after Xmas.......

PS Love your 'To be or not to be...' bit! You could have had:
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da - The Police

Sandy, I'll get some more CH pics sorted soon, watch this space!
Just remembred a guy (Brian summat, Terry R knows him too) who's now got a Coronet that was at the Nats & Hot Rod Drags (pictured below) also used to have a CH. Not sure if that ones still around?

[Anonymous]

Strangely enough mate, apart from the article in CA I havent seen many pics of the Polara.

Love that engine.

As far as my car goes, its just a rolling shell at the moment. EVERYTHING that comes off is off.

John is taking the shell for acid dipping in January, so once thats been done, then I will start posting some pictures. Its from that point that the rebuild will start as it is only just through the stripping down stage.

To be honest, I am in no great rush for it to be done, and I have let JPC know that. I just want it done right, and they are the guys to do it.

My engine is almost ready to drop in and the gearbox is rebuilt with Stage 2 kit and some other tricky bits.

So progress is being made but its little bits all over. Rather than leaps and bounds in one area.

I am looking forward to being able to post some pics though, I feel a bit left out at the moment.

[RobTwin]

Sure it'll be worth the wait and I cant wait to see how it turns out.
When we bought the Polara we thought the 1st major job would be a respray and a little bodywork, and had JPC in mind to do it, just from his reputation.
So it will be good to check out some of his/their work when yours is done.

But priorities change, and when we realised things werent as hunky-dory in the engine department as 1st thought, we had to drop any other plans and get that sorted asap.

I'll do a Polara bit for the members cars section soon...

[Rich]

Looks great now Rob with the vinyl.But think it looked the dogs in the 1st pic,even with the sluts.
Did anyone who bought their car in the 80`s/early 90`s NOT have slot mags on it??

[Holly]

Of course anyone that wants to ogle the Polara can check out the photos of it in the Garage section

[RobTwin]

Thought I'd drag this up from the depths of page 12 of Members Cars, with a few pics Stu took of the work he's been doing over the last few weeks.... er months?

Havent used the car for a couple of years, mainly cos we were getting the Polara sorted, and after the last time it was used for the Chelsea Cruise (Nov 06? ) it felt like it needed a bit of a freshen up - carb/trans/ign etc

While we had the carb off and Brutal Brutus gave it a freshen up for us, in between engine changes on the 'Pit, Stu made a start tidying up the underneath & inside the trunk.

Although the exterior paint has lasted pretty well since the last repaint around '95, prob due to condensation/rain leakage, the trunk paint was getting a bit flaky, so needed stripping back to a good base & repainting. Luckily we had some of the, ahem, Vauxhall blue paint left over in a tin, so Stu got it made up as aerosols.
Looks a good job to me, and no worse than the original repaint with all the proper equipment! Anyhoo, most of it will be covered up with the mat, spare wheel, battery etc

[RobTwin]

more trunk pix

Pics of oily bits underneath to follow.... later today

[Anonymous]

Blimey, What a change from last time i saw your car.Looking GOOD.

[RobTwin]

When was that Mark - when it was green? It's only been blue since '91

Do you remember it way back when Andy was a nipper? He posted these a year or so ago.... would be nice to get it back to the original gold one day

[RobTwin]

Back to more current stuff....

Other work to be done before getting back on the road includes:

new trans mount

rebalance prop - by Bailey Morris; found to be 9g out of balance (previously done by RecoProp )

new rear shocks - replace the air shox that were on the car when we bought it (nearly 24 yrs ago )

replace the old BUM, sorry, B&M Z gate shifter with a Hurst Pro Matic shifter and try & incorporate it into the new/old console we've been cobbling together (thanks to Clivey for the 'old' )

fit new seatbelts - always had 2x front 3-point belts but not original as far as we know. Hoping to get original style lap & shoulder belts for front & 3x lap belts for the back, prob from BE&A. Still not sure if anyone sells exact repro belts, unless you have an old set to be refurbed by SnakeOyl

Oh, and mustn't forget the FBO ingition kit to go on, courtesy of Neil (Wil) and the '08 Nats prize draw!

No pics of that lot as yet, but in the time that I usually get to look on here in the evenings, Stu's also been tarting up the underside - axle, petrol tank, exhaust.
Exhaust has been painted in the concourse-correct Halfords VHT Silver , not white as it appears in the pics!

In hindsight, should have had the extended 70's-stylee leaf spring shackles off to cut back to a sensible length maybe next time...

[RobTwin]

more pix...

New rear shocks have been fitted since these were taken, hoping to get to lend a hand meself on Monday